intermittent thoughts on my life and work as the chess coach at IS 318, a public middle school in Brooklyn

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

democracy is lame

What kills me about politics is how much weight everyone gives to opinion polls, even though what the man on the street thinks is absolutely random, and I think everyone would agree that everyone knows this. People no longer believe in global warming? How do you change your mind about that? People have opinions about health care but don't read the paper or listen to the news? The media needs to stop reporting on this entirely.

30 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Couldn't agree more - and it is scary how easily influenced most people are. The news bombards them with scare stories on human-caused global warming (it's a scientific consensus!), combined with frantic demands from politicians (as we all know, government can fix the climate, all they ask in return is complete control over the economy).

Firstly there is no scientific consensus. There are many climatologists (Bjorn Lomborg to name just one, though there are many) who strongly dispute the theory (and yes, it is a theory) of man-made global warming. When pushed, the warm-mongers (columnist Mark Steyn’s wonderful term) will grudgingly admit as much but then go on to claim that such researchers are biased (as if the hundreds of millions of dollars of government grant money at stake isn’t enough to call into serious question the neutrality of those on the other side of the debate).

And of course, as the poster above notes, it has always seemed suspicious that those on the political left who claim that man-made global warming is a world-wide catastrophe are claiming that the only solution to the coming apocalypse are the very policies that they’ve been advocating for 100 years. What a startling coincidence!

So, to answer your question, how can people change their minds about global warming, the answer is amazingly simple: after all the years of one-sided propaganda the other side of the argument is starting to leak out. Along with, of course, near daily revelations of chicanery and fraud on the part of the leading global warming alarmists.

Now, of course I realize that many will never understand this. After years of near constant bombardment of propaganda they have been thoroughly brainwashed to believe a.) that anthropogenic warming is a fact (as opposed to the theory that it always has been) and b.) that the “science” is “settled”. So it goes. That doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to play along.

Oh, and one thing further. I found Elizabeth’s title to her post, “Democracy is lame”, to be quite telling. Indeed. Democracy is lame. If only the stupid masses would recognize the superiority of those who claim to be our intellectual superiors and just do whatever they tell us to we wouldn’t have to engage in that pesky democratic process which always seems to interfere with the utopia they are always on the verge of delivering unto us. For example, if only the enlightened could force upon us, say, the left’s Cap and Trade boondoggle (er, policy) we’d all be better off. Damn that democratic process which requires the consent of the governed.

Listen, I'm not saying "How can people change their minds about global warming after reading new perspectives/ thoughts/ articles disputing it?" That would be reasonable.

I believe there is a fairly broad scientific consensus on global warming. I quote from the veritable Wikipedia:

"Scientific opinion on climate change is given by synthesis reports, scientific bodies of national or international standing, and surveys of opinion among climate scientists. This does not include the views of individual scientists, individual universities, or laboratories, nor self-selected lists of individuals such as petitions.

National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion since the American Association of Petroleum Geologists adopted its current position in 2007.[2] Some organisations hold non-committal positions."

But I get the sense people have stopped believing in global warming because they read that other people have stopped believing. And that people are now losing faith in Obama because they are *bored* with him. I get the sense that most people have almost no informed opinions (and I'm probably not talking about most of my blog readers, because you are obviously literate people with excellent taste).

I think I would like people to be able to demonstrate a basic grasp of a issue before they get to have an opinion that counts.

Throughout the history of mankind scientific consensus has been extremely wrong about many subjects. I see no reason why any person who can see the past and recognize all the wildly wrong ideas that scientists from our past had, would be expected to blindly believe scientists on a topic where there definitely is some dissent.

Also I am sure there is probably some nudging towards scientists to find evidence in favor of global warming, for various reasons. Usually when scientists come up with unpopular ideas they are mocked at and laughed at by the scientific community, regardless of whether they are right (ie the guy who told doctors to simply wash their hands before surgery 100-150 years ago was looked at as a crackpot for a long time. Below is a link)

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blantisceptics.htm

Even the Intergovernmental Panel that released a major statement stated that there is only about a 90% chance that mankind is causing global warming.

You see this kind of thing in all fields...even in chess and poker...whatever openings or theories are popular at the time, are espoused by 90%+ of the experts in the field. The 10% who don't are looked at as eccentrics. 5-10 years later when people start playing the Dragon Sicilian or the Kings Indian Defense, everyone forgets that these people were mocked mercilessly 10 years before by the biggest experts in their field. I see no reason why science should be so completely different and there is so much evidence to back this up.

Anyway if I had to guess I'd say probably global warming is caused to some degree by humans, because it seems like most scientists think so and they are right more often than they aren't I assume. Like even in chess most people realized that 1.a4 is not the best move a very long time ago. But I definitely account for the possibility that they are wrong and would consider it a bit foolish for someone who has no concept of anything science-related, to say that they know for 100% sure that global warming is caused by humans. Large masses of experts are and have been wrong way too often.

Damn! Foiled again. I had you agreeing with me until I slipped and wrote that final sentence and revealed my otherwise brilliantly hidden secret agenda. Oh, well. Live and learn.

I'm fairly sure that most understood that I was using the term "fascist" in the general sense to mean one who desires to dispense with freedom so as to have the power to enact his or her own idea of what constitutes "the greater good". In other words, leftists.

But thanks for the input. Normally I wouldn't give much credence to one who is so overwrought that they manage to use the word "shit" twice in the same sentence, but for you I'll make an exception.

30 years ago, anyone studying meteorology was taught about the likelihood of global warming based on simple scientific principles.Being proven right over time (based on measurement) is no solace for having warnings ignored for decades - when remedies were cheap - and now having people claim that it's all a leftist political plot.The climate is apolitical but humans can affect it, positively (now only with extraordinary effort) or negatively (business as usual).

I largely agree with your politics but, have to argue that it seems clear to me that you would be one of the first to spout nonsense that x% of the population believes in some liberal cause.

The media can completely manipulate the public. We are stupid tools.... Hell, in Houston we have had a pretty tame winter, but ONE day was the coldest in the past 100 years, and I don't know how many times I heard something about how global warming must be nonsense that day.

I do think the opinion of the common idiot is important regardless of the validity of their stance.

Science has become the modern religion, and is no longer held to the standards that it originally was. Someone proposes a theory and gets some financial backing, then it becomes the socially accepted truth. Opposing the notion of global warming or evolution limits one to a backwoods hick status in many social groups, despite the fact that both arguments are far more complex than they are given credit for.

In "Manufacturing Consent" Noam Chomsky suggests the media self polices through five filters. 1.What massive corporation owns the media? 2.How will the media sell the viewers to the advertizers and therefore make their money? 3.How can they create cheap and easy news by taking public relations information from government and corporations? 4.How can they avoid negative pressure from organizations like the Global Climate Coalition, supported by Exxon, Texaco, and Ford? 5. How can they beat up on someone to look tough and newsy? Perhaps blaming socialism, activism, Acorn or Peta?

But don't take my word for it. The model can be tested scientifically.

Indeed. Mr. Chomsky's hyposthesis can be tested scientifically. All one really needs to do is quantify the number of media stories, either in what passes for the news or in popular culture (television shows, movie plots, song lyrics, etc) which place the blame on the world's woes on "socialism, activism, Acorn or Peta" and compare that number to the corresponding number of media stories that blame the world's woes on big corporations, the military (and it's evil business branch the "military-industrial complex"), big oil, the CIA, insurance companies, big pharma, etc. I wonder which number would be larger? Hmmm. What a puzzle.

To Elizabeth, with Obama, the boy king, floundering and failing the loony left, and now, that the Global Warming religion has no clothes, what are you going to do? Why, let’s blame the media, the same media that propped the two up in the first place.

And you said “I believe there is a fairly broad scientific consensus on global warming. I quote from the veritable Wikipedia:”. Did you know there was a fairly broad scientific consensus that the world was flat? How did that work out?

There are no better methods, maybe more positive methods, but not better, of departing from the default, programmed worldview, then feeding your paranoia and not your mind. Perception is everything and you can free your mind by buying into a reality tunnel that is hopelessly negative. Free yourselves from the consensus worldview at Anjiaoshi Asylum, where you will worship myself and Anjiaoshi as Gods on earth, and obey every and all commands we utter, even when you've clearly witnessed us freebasing shoe polish and methamphetamines, this is the word of the Lord.